The most expensive film ever made, Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, opened on this date in 1963. 10 facts you might not know.
Its budget was $44 million is equivalent to over $411 million in 2024. This included construction of 79 sets, 26,000 costumes and the $1 million Elizabeth Taylor demanded for her role. Even being the highest grossing film at the box office that year didn’t save Twentieth Century Fox from almost going bankrupt. It took years for the film just to break even. If it wasn’t for The Sound of Music three years later, the studio would have gone under.
Elizabeth Taylor's 65 costumes alone cost $194,800, the highest ever for a single-screen actress. These included a dress made from 24-carat Gold cloth.
It was supposed to be two three hour films: "Caesar and Cleopatra", followed by "Antony and Cleopatra". Twentieth Century Fox decided to edit it down to three hours fourteen minutes for general release as just one film.
Another huge expense would have been all the ships needed for Cleopatra’s fleet. It was actually said at the time that Twentieth Century Fox had the world's third largest navy.
It was the first film that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred in together, and marked the beginning of their famous on-off love affair. At the time, they were both married to other people, Burton to Sybil Williams and Taylor to Eddie Fisher. Hence their on-set affair caused a massive scandal that made headline news.
Before the role was offered to Elizabeth, Sophia Loren, Joan Collins, and Dorothy Dandridge were among those considered for the role.
At first, filming took place in Pinewood in England only eight minutes of this footage made it into the final cut because the weather in England isn’t much like it would have been in ancient Egypt. Those eight minutes cost £6.45m. Another problem was that the British climate didn’t do much for Taylor’s health, and she contracted pneumonia and almost died. A tracheotomy had to be performed in order to save her life; the scar is visible in some scenes. The climate in Rome was better for her recovery.
There were a few errors. In one scene, Caesar is saying goodbye to Cleopatra in Alexandria before sailing back to Rome, when an aide informs him he must hurry up or they’ll miss the tide. In fact, tides in the Mediterranean Sea are so minimal that the tide would never have been an issue. Other “mistakes” were not actually goofs at all, such as Cleopatra talking to Caesar about Rome's interest in Egyptian corn. Americans would claim that the Egyptians wouldn’t know about the corn they are familiar with, maize, because it was originally cultivated in prehistoric Mesoamerica and only spread worldwide in the 15th and 16th centuries. In fact, the script uses the British meaning of the word corn, which includes other cereal grains as well.
Elizabeth Taylor was originally barred from entering Egypt to film because, for her marriage to Eddie Fisher, she had converted to Judaism. However, when the authorities realised how much money the film would bring in to their economy, they relented.
Cleopatra eventually earned nine Oscar nominations, winning four, but people who actually worked on it were less than impressed. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was never proud of it and the only reason he didn’t quit was because Elizabeth Taylor was a good friend of his. He did later try to get his name removed from the credits. As for Taylor, it’s said that when she saw the final cut, she threw up.
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